What Goes Unspoken (Still Needs to Be Heard)
by BeTrueToThyself
Summary: Sam gets carsick. He hasn't "grown out of it," as his dad insisted he would. He just stopped mentioning it. Five times it goes ignored. Plus one time it doesn't.


A/N: This story is cross-posted to the AO3.

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1)

"Whoo-hoo!" Dean cried as he skidded the Impala around a corner. The windows were down and the icy winter air whistled through the car, ruffling his short hair.

Sam almost sat on his hands to stop himself from grabbing the handle on the door. It wouldn't help his stomach feel better, anyway. Sam was not going to ruin his brother's sixteenth birthday for anything.

"She's mine now, Sammy!" Dean hollered over the wind. He caressed the steering wheel. "I still can't believe Dad gave her to me! Can you? This is awesome!" His green eyes were almost manically bright. His grin could not possibly get bigger. Sam had never seen such joy on his brother's face before, not if this was what "joy" meant.

Iowa fields to either side sprawled to the horizon, empty of any other cars. This was open, snowy country, and as long as they stuck to pavement, Dean could open the throttle as far as he wanted.

Dean spun them around another corner, the back end fishtailing on a patch of ice. He whooped. Sam gagged silently, his face paling to grey. He swallowed down bile and forced a smile. "Awesome! Right, Dean?"

"Hell yeah, Sammy! Whoo!"

Sam just prayed Dean wouldn't take them on any more hairpin turns or donut spins – but he knew that was just so much water in a leaky bucket. So really, he hoped he could keep his breakfast where it belonged. He would not ruin this for his brother, not at any cost. For once, this day was all about Dean. Not Sam.

2)

Sam rested his head against the window on his right and closed the math book. He shouldn't even have tried to read it. He knew better than that. Reading in the car was a sure way to make him nauseous – not that his stomach needed any help with that. But now he had a headache on top of the regular nausea. He knew that would happen when he pulled the book out. But there was only so much boredom a ten-year-old could take.

He looked in the front seat at the back of his dad's and brother's heads. They hadn't noticed; they were still talking about the rugaru they were about to take down.

And of course, Sam would stay in the car while they went on the hunt. Like normal: stuck in his own personal torture device. At least it would be motionless.

The cold glass of the window felt good, but the rattle against his skull forced him to pull away, or he really would throw up. He sighed. A sign for a diner drew closer from out of the distance. Sam took a breath to ask that they stop. But he wasn't exactly hungry, and his dad wouldn't buy another request for a bathroom break so soon after the last one. Besides, he was supposed to be "growing out of it" by now.

As if carsickness was something he _could_ grow out of. He used to believe Dad when he said that. But he stopped believing everything his dad said years ago.

The sign was growing bigger and gaining definition. Sam still hadn't released the air in his chest. He'd have to say something soon or they would miss the turn.

The sign shot past the car, and he let go of the breath. His stomach squirmed, but the worm-like dance was something he'd gotten used to.  
It took a long time before Sam felt the need to inhale again.

3)

"Why?" Dean whispered, his tone stricken. "Why do you need to go to college so badly?" His voice was quiet in the aftermath of the thunder Sam and John had shouted at each other.

Sam's hands stopped throwing his stuff into his duffel, and his taut shoulders loosened. With his brother's question, his protective anger weakened, leaving him just feeling hurt. There was something about the dim hotel room, with the neon lights from the strip of businesses across the street shining brightly, that made that one question feel intimate.

Dean would understand where John hadn't.

But when Sam turned to face his brother, his hope died. Dean's expression was almost the same as Dad's had been before the shouting started: that of someone betrayed and thrown overboard, but still hoping for a life vest to be thrown to him. All the explanations and reasons Sam had crafted over the years flitted through his head, all but shapeless steam.

_I want to live my own life_, he could have said. _It's healthy to leave when you reach adulthood. I honestly don't understand why that's difficult to grasp._ Or maybe, _I just want to live in safety._ Or, _I want to be normal._ Or maybe he could have said what he really meant. _I just want to be heard._ More fundamentally: _I just want my needs to be met._ But what he could never say, not about the Impala Dean believed was their home, _I just want to live in one place and never get in another car again._

In the end, Sam said nothing. Because how could he ever tell his brother, _How is it any wonder I constantly feel nauseous in a life where my family doesn't respect or listen to me?_

4)

He clutched his head, his forehead as near his knees as he could reach without bouncing his skull against the dashboard.

Dean chuckled nervously to his left. "That ghost sure got you good, huh? I still can't believe you had the bad luck to get thrown into a grave marker head-first, though. Good thing it was wood and not stone, right?"

Sam swallowed compulsively. "Shut up."

Dean chuckled again, nerves gone. "Come on, admit it. It was kinda funny."

"I mean it, Dean. Sounds make it hurt worse." His head was trying to pound out of his hands, and only years of practice were keeping his innards in place.

"Oh." Dean's voice was quieter. Sam felt an awkward pat on the shoulder. "We'll be at the motel soon." There was a silence, and Sam could almost hear the smirk creeping onto his brother's face.

"One word," Sam commanded, cutting off Dean's inhale before it became some sort of joke at his expense, "and I will throw up in this car."

Dean's swallow was audible. "You wouldn't."

Sam threw up. It made his stomach feel better and his head worse. He got a vindictive pleasure out of doing what he'd wanted to do ever since he could remember.

And if Dean thought his concussion was worse than it really was because he'd forgotten about Sam's carsickness, Sam wasn't about to correct him.

5)

Dean was staring at Sam from across the roof of the car, his hand on top of his open door. Sam could feel his gaze, but he couldn't stop staring at the hallucination of Lucifer in the front passenger seat. Lucifer frowned at Sam, then smirked and lifted his hands as if to say, "What can you do?" He settled deeper into the seat, throwing his left arm across the back.

"Sam!" Dean's shout lifted his stare. Sam barely glanced at his brother's expression of dawning understanding and resignation before he was looking anywhere but at Dean or Lucifer.

His brother sighed and put both forearms on the roof. "Is it Lucifer?"

Sam still wasn't looking at him, but he nodded.

Dean rubbed his forehead. "Can you... you know." He gestured awkwardly. "Do the hand thing?"

Sam shook his head. "It's healed. You know that." Besides, while Sam may be messed up, he knew better than to think physical pain could be a real remedy for long.

Dean threw up his hands. "Oh, forget it, then." He stepped back and shut the car door. "I saw a place to eat a few blocks down. "You hungry? I'm hungry. Let's go."

Sam exhaled with relief. The two of them started down the sidewalk, shoulder to shoulder. He didn't even hardly mind when Lucifer fluttered into sight at his right elbow. But to see his torturer in the seat that represented so much repressed nausea and heartache... that was a little much.

Sam refused to psychoanalyze why Lucifer started showing up in Sam's seat more often after that reprieve.

+1)

He sat at the library table in the bunker, reading and determinedly not noticing Dean's stare. Sam turned a page. Dean took a drink.

Then he set his glass on the table and leaned forward. "Why haven't you decorated your room?" Dean seemed to think a surprise attack would make Sam tell him. It hadn't worked yet.

Sam sighed, marked his page and sat back. "Why does it matter so much to you?"

"I know –" He cut himself off, licked his lips, and tried again. "I know how much you always wanted to live in one place, have a more normal life and all that."

Sam laughed. It would have been bitter, but it was too empty. His expression was bland when he said, "I gave up on that dream a long time ago, Dean."

His brother didn't seem to know how to respond. So he bypassed it. "Right, well, now that we've got a place, I'm surprised you haven't tried to move in. You've got next to nothing in your room."

Sam shrugged. "I have enough, same as always." He took the bookmark back out and began reading again. "So if that was all, I have research to do."

"What is _with_ you?"

Sam looked up, surprised at the level of anger in the question.

"We're not living out of the Impala anymore. Why aren't you happier about not feeling carsick all the time?"

His jaw didn't quite drop – he had more self-control than that – but Dean knew him better than anyone and saw his shock anyway.

"Yeah, I haven't forgotten." Dean sounded bitter. "But I guess you thought I had." His hand tightened into a fist, then he spread it flat on the wood tabletop. He leaned even farther in, his green eyes abruptly earnest. "Sam. How could I forget when you always look so pale while we're driving somewhere?"

Sam swallowed. His throat felt tight. He broke eye contact. "I didn't know that happened."

Dean shifted backward, intensity easing. "Yeah, well, you got pretty good at hiding everything else." His voice held no animosity; it was only a statement of fact.

Regardless, Sam sank an inch or two lower in his chair.

Dean's gaze flicked toward the movement but didn't call him on it. "That's a big part of the reason I'm glad we have this bunker now – for your sake." He sighed. "But you haven't moved in."

Sam took a breath, held it, then nodded.

A tentative smile spread across Dean's lips. Sam offered a sign of peace. "Jess did the decorating when we shared an apartment. She said I had all the artistic sense of a rock."

Dean's smile widened. Truce accepted. "I could help you."

Sam inhaled, exhaled, then said, "Okay."

"Let's start now!" Dean shoved his heavy, wooden chair back and bounced to his feet. "Come on, Sammy. I'll even loan you the scimitar to hang on your wall."

Sam let himself be dragged down the corridor. All this time, he thought it had gone ignored and forgotten. But Dean had remembered. A smile spread across Sam's face as he listened to his brother chatter about what he could use to decorate.


End file.
